Ron Gordon – Test firing nuclear missiles with the Americans

When we came out of refit, you then have to, when you’re ready, go and sail across to America and be examined by the Yanks, and what they’re doing there is doing this thing called ‘Dayso’ is checking that you’re fit to handle nuclear weapons, and so …

Simon: The sort of psychological side?

Practical side as well. We were the port crew, so we took the submarine out there. We went into Port Canaveral, met the Yanks there, then every day you’d go out for an exercise and you’re exercising that you’re firing the weapons. You’re not actually firing the weapons, but they throw all sorts of defects at you, and they see how you react. The prime aim is that you’ve got to get all those weapons fired off within 15 minutes of the signal to launch them, and they throw all sorts of stuff in there to try and put you off just to see how you handle it. So that goes on for about 10 days and then the other crew flew out.

They then took over and we went on leave. I went up to see my sister that I hadn’t seen for 16 years in Racine in Wisconsin. That was all organised, the flights were all organised, everything was paid for. You know, they did all that for me, while the other crew did exactly the same thing. They were put through the mill, and then at the end of that period, they then had the task of firing a real rocket, just to check that all the systems worked.

Simon: It’s a rocket without a war head?

Yeah.